My Account

Statistics

Nutrigenomic foods

Author

Constantin, Nathalie

Wahli, Walter

Date of Issue

2013

School

Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine

Abstract

The growing epidemic of obesity, as well as the
alarming rise in associated pathologies, such as diabetes,
hypertension and heart disease, reflects a
mismatch between modern diet and lifestyle and
our thrifty human genome. At the turn of the millennium,
application of high-performance technologies
associated with genomics to nutritional
sciences catalysed the emergence of nutritional genomics,
a revolutionary research area that focuses
on characterising the bidirectional interactions between
genes and nutrition. In particular, nutrigenomics
uses the so-called “omics technologies” to
define and characterise “dietary signatures” that
may reflect the actions of nutrients on the structure
and expression of the whole human genome, as
well as the final impact on health. In this article,
we review how food components interact with our
genes and how new insights in the field of nutrigenomics
are leading to individualised nutrition,
which may be of benefit in disease prevention, as
well as in combination with medical treatments.
Repercussions for the food chain are presented, such
as the development of a new generation of foods of
high nutritional value with regard to nutrition and
health promotion. In addition, some social and ethical
implications are discussed.